1st Grade Report Overview

Materials include teacher resources for letter formation instruction and practice and extensive instruction, modeling, and student practice in concepts of print. Materials provide explicit instruction in all grade-level phonological awareness skills through systematic modeling and explicit instruction in phonics through systematic and repeated modeling within daily lessons over the course of the year. Materials provide explicit instruction and student practice opportunities for decoding in context and include regular teacher modeling and student practice opportunities in building, manipulating, and encoding phonemes and words. Materials contain explicit, systematic teacher-level instruction of teacher modeling that demonstrates the use of phonics to encode sounds to letters and words in writing tasks with teacher modeling and teacher sample dialogue. Materials include systematic and explicit instruction in reading common high-frequency words by sight within the High-frequency Words lessons found throughout all units and modules. Materials include regular explicit instruction and modeling of word analysis strategies through teacher scripts and teacher modeling. Materials provide systematic and explicit instruction and practice in fluency, focusing on automaticity in decoding, accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on successive readings using grade-level texts through lessons with shared readers and decodable texts. Materials provide a well-defined teacher resource for content presentation through well-detailed lesson plans from pre-instruction to lesson videos to post-instruction. The Professional Development library includes videos and detailed examples of grade-level foundational skills concepts to support teachers with developing and building their content knowledge. 

Materials contain a clear and evidence-based explanation for the expected hierarchy for teaching phonological awareness skills, phonemic awareness skills, and phonics skills within a logical scope and sequence. Materials contain jargon-free resources and processes to inform all stakeholders about foundational skills taught at home through Caregiver letters and online student data requested by the caregiver. Materials include a variety of decodable texts that contain grade-level phonics skills aligned to the program’s scope and sequence to ensure that students secure newly-taught phonics skills and provide ample opportunities to review previously-taught phonics skills. 

Materials include regular assessment opportunities in print concepts, letter recognition, and letter formation. Assessments include daily Observation checklists and digital Practice Interactivities, formative Unit Assessments, and summative Interim Assessments. Materials provide varied opportunities for teachers to assess students’ understanding of phonological awareness through daily Observation checklists, assigned games/interactive activities, and Unit Assessments. Materials include regular assessment opportunities in phonics in and out of context and in word recognition and analysis.

Materials provide opportunities to measure student progress in fluency, but they are informal and do not provide sufficient guidance to teachers about what to do with that information. Materials include standards correlation information within daily lessons and attached to specific questions, tasks, and assessments. Materials include some support for teaching ELL students. Materials provide general information in the Program Guide through the Frequently Asked Questions section, which outlines some best practices for different areas of foundational skills. Additionally, materials include extensive opportunities for reteaching and enrichment. The Foundations A-Z digital materials, which include teacher Lesson Plans, Professional Development, Resources, Student Progress reports, e-Books, and student games, are platform neutral and are compatible with multiple Internet browsers and operating systems. Materials support the effective use of technology and visual design to enhance student learning through eBooks, such as Shared readers, Decodable texts and Grade-level texts, and animated student games and videos. The students’ digital interactive learning videos, games, and assessments are well-organized and visually appealing and are designed to enhance student learning.